Columbia Electric Corp. and Westcoast Power Inc. are developinga 500 MW gas-fired generation plant in Pennsylvania. Each companywill own a 50% interest.

The plant would be built on a 25-acre site near Philadelphia,and is expected to be completed by mid-2001. Called the LibertyElectric Power Plant, it would be constructed next to PECO EnergyCo.’s Eddystone Generation Station in Delaware County.

The Liberty plant, which will serve the PJM marketplace, isexpected to cost about $300 million and would consume about 80MMcf/d of gas. A 500-MW plant can serve the electric power needs of250,000 homes. PJM is the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Marylandinterconnected power pool that covers much of mid-Atlantic region.This power pool is considered a major crossroads of the growingelectric transmission grid over which utilities and other companiesbuy and sell electricity that they send to markets in Pennsylvania,New Jersey, Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, New York, Ohio andWashington, D.C.

Columbia Electric and Westcoast Power said they are continuingto look at additional new sites in North America for electricgenerating capacity that they could build together.

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